The Necessity of Play by Hope Ledyard

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 26, 1882

The Necessity of Play.

By Hope Ledyard

We all find out, sooner or later, that an idle life is a miserable one, yet too many of us strive hard to love work for itself, instead of understanding at the outset that the end of work is to enjoy leisure. We would be far more successful with our children if we took care not only to teach them how to work, but to show them what a zest this very work gives their play.

I hold that children too soon forget how to play in this nineteenth century; and as for men and women—they need play, recreation, badly enough, but how few of us know how to get it! I do not know that much can be done for those who are in middle life; when tired from hard study, they take up light literature; when feeling the need of exercise, they go for a sober walk, carrying their perplexities and cares with them, and come back a little more tired than they started.

Would that men took the Bible, at least Christ's sayings, more literally! There is such a world of every-day physical happiness as well as spiritual blessing in his warning, "Except ye be converted (that is, turned around, changed) and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven." Now what can be nearer pure heavenly happiness than that enjoyed by a healthy, happy child, as he runs and leaps, delighting in God's free sunshine, the glorious sky and delightful invigorating wind? A few grown people know what it is to enjoy a run, to forget all cares and troubles in the very joy of living on God's beautiful earth, and so, at times, playing like children, find that kingdom which is "within you." But too many could not understand such a simple matter as a race, or an hour's skating, or a battle with the surf giving one perfect happiness.

Now, as I have said, we can't do much for such people, but we mothers can do very much in bringing up our children to regard good play as nearly as holy and pleasant an offering to God as honest, faithful work. We should share our children's sports, and, though it may be anything but play to us at first, we shall find it not only a wonderful help in winning our children's hearts, but the effort will save us many a doctor's bill. Is it any wonder that your little daughter of twelve or thirteen begins to stoop and look languid and pale, when a game of romps is only enjoyed by "children," and the wonderful feeling of womanhood is drawing her, in spite of her longings for "fun," to copy her mother—her ideal (how can we thank God enough that this is so?) of all that is lovely? Join in the romps yourself, if it is only in the way I saw a weakly, delicate woman romp with her boys,—by sitting in a corner and trying to catch them as they ran past her chair,—and you will see the girl's roses blooming again, and will hear less querulousness in her voice.

Boys, too, need to be guided a little as to play. Teach them how to form clubs, study up Lacrosse, if you are happy enough to live near open fields, and take time to make uniform caps and shirts for the boys—not only your boy, but for a friend or so. One hour of work, trying to give pleasure to your children's friends, will teach them more of true charity and benevolence than all the talk in the world. "I've got the best mother in the block," said a little chap the other day; and when the other boys demanded proof, he pointed proudly to the flag she had made for the "company," the epaulettes that adorned every one of the squad, and announced triumphantly, "And she's a-bakin' gingerbread for the hull of us. Any of your mothers done that?"

I wish some one with the tongue of an angel could show mothers what opportunities they are losing. I meet women in the streets, day after day, who have boys of eight, ten, or twelve, or girls from six to sixteen, and yet these mothers are alone. How often do you see a young mother with her boy of twelve, and younger ones hanging about her? and what a beautiful sight every one finds it when they do see it!

I remember, when a girl at school, having as a subject of composition, "Which is the Greater Incentive to Industry, the Fear of Punishment or the Hope of Reward?" How my young teacher must have smiled as she read my closing sentence: "I can't tell very well, as I always have the fear of punishment, but my children are going to have the hope of reward!" But now, a happy mother, with my boys about me, I endorse that girlish resolution. The hope of a hearty romp, a long, delightful walk, with "a penny round" for candy, has swept my sitting-room, cleaned our door-yard, made a quiet, faithful nurse of a very unquiet little six-year-old, and helped me out of so many difficulties that I wonder more mothers do not try to meet the great necessity that exists among us all for play.—Hope Ledyard, in S. S. Times.